‘Breaking Bad’: Hang on to your hats

It is undoubtedly stressful to work for someone that you know, with absolute certainty, will kill you at the first opportunity, hence the swiftly unraveling Walt’s long venting session in Saul’s office. But consider poor Mike’s work day: He started the episode dressed in Arctic gear, huddled in the back of a refrigerated truck filled with Los Pollos Hermanos food stuffs (and some other items). As if that, in and of itself, weren’t bad enough, the truck eventually came to a stop and was shot up by a couple of machine gun-toting dudes (perhaps somehow related to the whole Tuco-and-his-cousins debacle). Then Mike really earned his paycheck by killing those guys. (How he got home is open to debate.)

And that was just the beginning of his day. He and the new Watcher have been keeping tabs on Jesse and his endless party, and Mike is getting uneasy about what that might mean for the meth business. Jesse — who doesn’t have a wife to push him to buy a car wash — has, instead, been keeping his money in a bag stashed in an unlocked drawer in his bedroom. One of his more lucid junkie squatters found it and stole it — no surprise there — and Mike and the Watcher tracked the guy down and got the money back. They also walloped the thief, bringing him to Jesse all trussed up. Mike intimated to Jesse that they’d be offing the guy; Jesse pointed out that, since they’d taken the trouble to blindfold him, presumably to make sure he couldn’t identify them, he was pretty sure they weren’t actually going to kill him. Then he took his bag o’ money and went back to bed. (Side note: Anybody else a little surprised by how relatively tidy Jesse’s bedroom is? I guess he’s got a strict meth-heads-on-the-first-floor-only policy (except, of course, for those he invites upstairs for sex or gaming).

Mike brought the situation to Gus’ attention, telling him that Jesse’s lack of caution was eventually going to be a problem. And so, he said, even though Walt wouldn’t like it, Jesse has to be dealt with. Which is how the episode ended, with Jesse and Mike in a car, Jesse expressing zero curiosity over where they might be going. Which begs the question: Where do YOU think Mike is taking Jesse? Is Jesse likely to survive the drive? And, if he doesn’t, what action will Walt take in response?

Walt, meanwhile, spent a fair amount of the episode with Skyler, who felt that they needed to “come clean,” in a way, to Hank and Marie about the source of the money they’re using to buy the car wash. She fleshed out the tale they’ve been working on for a while — that Hank had become addicted to gambling, and had made a bunch of money by counting cards — and even included some stage directions for Walt, as well as the intro, “It’s a doozy, so hang on to your hats.” All of which seemed to annoy him greatly, but he did go along with it, allowing her to deliver her tearful tale over dinner at Hank and Marie’s, though his mind was definitely elsewhere. While Marie and Skyler worked on pulling the meal together, Hank showed off his mineral collection and, when Walt showed that he actually knows more about the composition makeup of the minerals than Hank does — a real jerk move on Walt’s part — Hank put the rocks away. Then he pulled a DVD from the Gale Boetticher case file to show them. In it, Gale gives a karaoke performance of “Major Tom,” the sight of which clearly makes Walt ill.

After dinner, Walt excused himself, ostensibly to use the restroom, though what he really wanted was a look at the case file. He found the crime scene photos of Gale’s body, as well as his detailed lab notes. All of this, of course, took a long time, which drew Hank into the hall, where they met. Hank told Walt that, if he needed to talk, Hank’s there; Walt, seeing an opportunity, offered the same services, specifically offering to help him talk out cases. And so, Hank (who seemed to be closer to his old self, perhaps revived by working the case file) discussed the case. He handed over the lab notes to Walt to flip through; it included, in addition to notes on the lab, a recipe for vegan s’mores and indoor composting tips. “This guy was a real character,” Hank said.

Hank then told Walt that he had been chasing Gale for a long time — that Gale was this guy who called himself Heisenberg, who manufactured the purest meth on the market: “God, I wanted to get this guy,” Hank said, not realizing he was speaking to “this guy.” “I wanted to slap the cuffs on myself.”

He lamented that Heisenberg had gotten away. And, on some level, you just know that Walt, in the fine tradition of evil geniuses everywhere, really, really wanted to correct the record and tell Hank that he — his own brother-in-law! — is Heisenberg.

Of course, he didn’t. Not even when Hank pointed to the dedication page of the notebook: “To W.W.” Hank joked that it could be Woodrow Wilson, Willie Wonka…or Walter White. Walter White noted a bit of a poem in the notebook, and suggested that it was actually Walt Whitman.

Walt asked how the investigation into Gale’s death was going; Hank told him it was continuing, that there was some evidence to deal with. Which, of course, sent Walt to Jesse’s place (Jesse hadn’t yet been scooped up by Mike). He interrogated Jesse about the night he killed Gale, asking if he might have left fingerprints, whether he’d picked up the shell casing, how many times he had fired. Jesse went along for a few seconds, then decided he didn’t want to re-visit that evening. He offered his houseguests $100 for hustling Walt out the door, which a couple of guys gladly accepted.

Walt went from there to Saul’s office, where he vented for a long time, trying to figure out what the next step is, since, as things stand, “everyone is in danger.” Saul — after asking whether his name ever came up with Gus — told him that he knows a guy who could, for a steep fee, make Walt and his family vanish.

“This is an end game,” he told him. “There is no going back. You want his card?”

Walt didn’t — not yet. Then he went to work, alone — Jesse didn’t show up, because, thought Walt didn’t know it, he was in that car with Mike. Walt left a bunch of messages for Jesse, eventually going to the house, which had been cleared out. Walt kept dialing Jesse’s cell phone, which he eventually found on a bedside table.

And so, Walt went back to the lab, looked up at the camera, and asked, “Where is he?”

So, what did you think? What’s Walt’s next move? Do you suppose that Walt will, eventually avail himself of the guy how makes people vanish? Will Gus let things reach that point? Post your comments below, and let’s have a conversation.